Democratic candidate Aaron Woolf ends media silence

21ST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT >> A month to the day after being endorsed by the Democratic committees of the North Country congressional district, candidate Aaron Woolf gave his first substantial interviews of his campaign to news outlets Wednesday.

Woolf said his first month on the campaign trail was spent conducting a “listening tour” of the massive district, which encompasses the entire North Country, including northern Saratoga County.

“It felt appropriate that I needed to be out in the district, talking and listening to voters,” he said, but that moving forward “the door is open.”

Woolf is running to replace Rep. Bill Owens, D-Plattsburgh, who announced his retirement in January. He is one of seven active candidates, including one other Democrat, three Republicans and two Green Party candidates.

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A documentary filmmaker, Woolf said he has no political experience.

“What I do have experience in is telling people stories and understanding how policy affects people,” he said. He has worked on documentary films about immigration, transportation and agriculture and “if there is one consistent theme in all of the films it is that policy affects people.”

Woolf only registered to vote in Elizabethtown in early February. Prior to that he was registered in New York City, where he owns a small grocery store and café. However, he said the North Country has always been a part of his life since his family bought a home there in 1968.

Woolf said his top priorities for the North Country all revolve around jobs and the economy, which he said were the primary concerns of residents.

Infrastructure plays heavily into industry, small business and agriculture, he said, from cell phone towers and broadband to physical infrastructure like transportation.

“We can’t expect businesses to invest in our communities if we can’t provide the infrastructure to support them,” he said.

Woolf said the lack of economic opportunities is costing the North Country its “most precious resource,” young people who leave the district and have not reason or foundation to return.

But he said he sees the “seeds of a new economy” with regional economic development grants and fostering development of North Country resources like forestry and agriculture.

“I think a lot about how I could be a cheerleader for the district,” he said.

As a political novice, Woolf said he would “be very proud to follow in Bill Owen’s footsteps” and to represent a district where John McHugh was elected. He said his politics are “born of the North Country; pragmatic, about getting stuff done.”

Woolf said if elected he would “support and defend our Second Amendment rights. I’m a gun owner and I’ve got a freezer full of venison. To me, guns are a part of our culture, almost more here than anywhere else in the country.”

On health care, he believes the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, was a “very, very flawed piece of legislation” and that its rollout was “disastrous,” but said “We can’t go back to when people could be denied for a preexisting condition and when young adults couldn’t stay on their parents plans until they had some economic feet under them.

“I hope very much to be one of the people in Washington working to fix it,” he said.